Obama the Nullifier? Again?

Hollywood would never dream of a plot line in which the power hungry tyrants in their country’s capital actively encourage anyone to disregard the rules that are spewed from the same capital. Yet, in DC, the hardened statist’s paradise, the Obama Administration has actively encouraged military contractors to ignore the WARN Act, according to Timothy H. Lee of the Center for Individual Freedom. To put it another way, President Obama has embraced nullification of federal legislation.

The WARN Act is a federal law that requires companies that employ 100 employees or more to provide 60 days notice before any layoffs or plant closings. The idea behind the bill is to give families an opportunity to adjust their finances, seek other employment or get training for a job search. This covers a wide of employees from managers and supervisors down to entry-level.

Companies that violate the WARN Act can face serious penalties anywhere from paying back pay and benefits to class action lawsuits. Greater minds than mine can discuss the constitutionality of the WARN Act, but for all the joking about “Obama the Nullifier,” the President is playing with the lives of the workers he vehemently claims to care about just to gain reelection.

The WARN Act, as mentioned earlier, requires 60 days notification before a layoff. This decision by the Obama Administration just happens to come out fewer than 60 days before the election. How convenient after the official unemployment rate just finally got under the 8% Obama told us we wouldn’t even see if his stimulus passed. The official rate was over 8% for over three years! Obama cannot afford to have the public find out it will increase again right after the election, or to have rumors of layoffs begin circulating.

And the military contractors affected? How were they convinced to break federal law when they faced stiff penalties for doing so? The Obama Administration offered to pay any penalties resulting from this action. I am certain those who tell us Congress can do anything in the name of the common defense, general welfare or interstate commerce, or that we cannot simply cherry pick the laws we want to follow will be all over the Obama Administration for this, right? Don’t count on it.

Those in power don’t truly believe in their arguments over what is or is not constitutional. They just use it to push their own agenda and hold onto their own power. That desperate need to cling to power while pretending to stick up for the people, if not seen for what it is, can make truth seem stranger than fiction, and the drama in DC more unreal than anything in the movies.